Russell Westbrook

H2H Playoffs are here! But geez, the amount of DNPs for minor injuries and general soreness (General Soreness!) over the weekend was infuriating! Unless they hit your oppo harder than you, then they were infatuating! I certainly almost lost a playoff spot to the former…

I guess our main stop on the DNP bandwagon would be the Atlanta Hawks and that darned Coach Butthole. I imagine we’ll be using that nickname for Budenholzer a ton down the stretch! The Hawks sat Jeff Teague, DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap (who had a nasty 23/9/3/3/3 rainbow Friday) last night, then had Kyle Korver break his nose and have to leave early on top of it. Korver was already set for a DNP tonight, so there’s that, and Al Horford owners will have to start the week with a DNP-rest. What a shizz-show! Which kinda sounds like Szechuan. Which makes me hungry… About as hungry as Dennis Schroder looks when he gets starts, ripping apart the Lakers in a 24/3/10 line hitting 7-16 FG (1-5 3PTM 9-11 FT). Even if you’re not a Teague owner, I think it’s impossible to leave the German on the wire. It would just improve The Lives of Others! And Coach Butthole has learned from Pop himself to sit everyone any chance he gets, with that line of thinking infecting the entire league this weekend. It already feels like the last week of the season, doesn’t it?! Maybe the playoffs need to start in week 10… Sheesh… Here’s what else went down on DNP Weekend in fantasy basketball:

The Charlotte Hornets welcomed back Kemba Walker to their lineup on Wednesday evening. In 16 minutes off the bench, Walker posted 6 points, 2 assists, and 1 block in 16 minutes. It wasn’t the game we expect out of Walker, but he was going to be limited to 9 minutes per half and Coach Steve Clifford stuck to his word. Don’t be surprised if Walker continues to be on a minutes’ restriction and come off the bench through the weekend. It will take Walker a few games to get back into game shape.

Mo Williams started Wednesday’s game and continued his strong play of late, putting up 20 points and 8 assists. With Walker back, Williams will inevitably lose playing time. However, Williams should still hold some value. He’ll be a fine play through the next couple games, while Walker is on a minutes’ restriction.

The tennis balls are off the legs, the HurryCane back in the closet, the pre-game meal eaten at 5:00 AM at the early bird special – we’ve got Kemba Walker back!

After a month and a half off, Walker came off the bench last night for the Hornets, and looked like Louis C.K.’s nethers. Rusty. 2-9 from the field for 6/1/2/0/1 with a TO in 16 minutes. While there’s no need to be harsh – we expected some rust after knee surgery – but Mo Williams played pretty well with 8 dimes and Gerald Henderson shocked the world with a career-high 11 assists. Ok, “shocked the world” may be a slight overstatement, I could say “it was so shocking it blew all his hair off!” It’s certainly interesting he had a previous career-high 9 dimes just last Sunday, so now there’s two facilitators to battle with. Makes me worried about Kemba’s assists upside, and he’s kinda looking like an Isaiah Canaan clone. Wait, I said I didn’t need to be harsh! That said, Kemba is healthy and has a lot more upside, so obviously worth owning everywhere. I just wouldn’t be shocked (unlike Hendo’s dimebag!) if he’s towards the end of the line if you’re killing Pts/3s and need to stream a stat at the end of week one of the playoffs… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Who knows, maybe devoting his soul to the lord of the Sith is what got Hassan Whiteside to where’s he’s at!

Absolutely terrible flagrant-2 last night to the back of Kelly Olynyk, hit-sticking him into the cameramen. L3, L3! Friend of the Podcast Mike Gallagher from Rotoworld tweeted out a great vine showing the hit from two angles, and I think that’s maybe a judo elbow he learned from Tekken. On top of his lingering kankle issues, now we have to assume a game or two out via suspension. Certainly doesn’t helped he tackled Alex Len a few games ago, with Whiteside’s flagrants turning into an MMA reel. As Slim and I mentioned on the Pod, Whiteside throws his body around willy-nilly and it’s starting to catch up with him with the physical play from oppos. Gotta control those emotions, young padawan! “Concentrate!” Just has to get the last few mental things together to be an elite NBA big. Can you do that, Hassan?! “I’ll try.” “No! There is no try! Do. Or do not.” Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

So the Daily Notes usually focuses on a short-term look at the past (i.e. the games yesterday!), but we’re going to do something a little different today in the open.

With week 20 abreast (so underused!), in standard H2H scheduling it’s the final week of the regular season. In other leagues it’s the first week of the playoffs or nearing the end in Roto, so any way you slice it, it’s the most important week so far, OK?!

And in this most important week, those ridiculous New York Poppycockers have five games. Five! So all of their not-must-ownable schlubs suddenly have the appeal of Elisabeth Shue in The Saint. Mmmmmmm!

A quick comparison – Langston Galloway since the break (aka Carmelo Anthony shutdown) is 10.8/5.0/2.5/1.3/0.4 with 1.3 3PTM and 1.4 TO. So lets compare that, with say, Bradley Beal. His 14.9/3.8/3.0/1.3/0.3 is a smidge stronger with 1.7 3PTM and 1.9 TO, and Beal is a much, much better player. But his 3 game week you’d get roughly 45/11/9/4/1 with 5 3s and 6 TO, compared to The Harlem Renaissance for 54/25/20/7/2 with 7 treys and 7 TO. In weekly leagues, these horrible Knicks deserve a long hard look.

Tim Hardaway Jr. and Louis Amundson are both questionable with back spasms tonight, so a little risky there. Shane Larkin, Alexey Shved, and Cole Aldrich make interesting streamer options though. And there’s of course Il Diva still out there in 68% of leagues. Andrea Bargnani is tough to ignore, even in the shallowers. Plus I can link this for the third time in the past week or two. “I’m a peacock, Captain, you gotta let me fly!” Here’s what went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops action:

For one week this season, it feels like there are more stars returning from injury than ones getting hurt. However, that won’t console those who saw their players were added to the injury list. So we’ll start with the bad news first.

All-Star Jimmy Butler suffered an elbow sprain in Sunday’s game and will miss the next 3-6 weeks. Fortunately the injury will not require surgery, but that still puts him out for most, if not all of March.

Joining Derrick Rose and Butler on the sideline, Taj Gibson is out with another ankle injury. Out since suffering the injury in Friday’s game, he’s no longer wearing a walking boot. Gibson has a history of ankle injuries so the Bulls’ may want to be extra cautious with him, but Gibson should be considered day-to-day going forward.

Three letters to sum it up right there (and I wrote the beginning of this open before seeing Rotoworld’s update! Groupthink.)

In only a light slate of two games last night, we had a very solid and steady fantasy contributor in Wesley Matthews go down with a torn Achilles and will miss the rest of the season. I haven’t been this mad at Achilleses (multiple Achilles?) since Brad Pitt in Troy! Man was Orlando Bloom a pansy too… Rough, rough injury and owners will have to scramble to find replacements for his 2.9 3PTM and 16.1 points a game with only 1.3 TO. Tagline of Taken baby! “Good luck.” And well, probably the guy filling in for Matthews is as good as any replacement, as Arron Afflalo should immediately step in the role and be Afflalo of old. I was shocked that late last night he was already owned in 66% of leagues, but that was probably spiking harder than a Charlie Sheen punchbowl with the devastating news last night. While Matthews was great for what he did, threes are a-plenty on the wire, and veterans of ThrAGNOF should be able to get their stream gloves dirty! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Crazy game in OKC last night! It was a crazy night across the board! For a while I thought the Sixers were really going to pull that one out – had the lead most of regulation and then clawed back late – but Russell Westbrook playing like Michael Jordan these days got the Thunder the OT win.

Behind all of RW’s historical hooblah which we’ll go into later, is Isaiah Canaan‘s career game. Career best 31 points on 10-16 FG (8-13 3PTM 3-3 FT) 31/7/6/1/0. And of course he does that right after I said you’d rather own Ish Smith! And Ish did ish in 15 minutes… All that said, Canaan had 29 early in the 4th and the Sixers couldn’t figure out ways to consistently get their hot shooter the rock. The continuity was awful with Philly only staying in the game by taking some horrible deep 3 pointers with no spacing or rebounders. It felt like one of those college intramural games where the much better team was struggling because the other team’s scrubs kept hitting 3s for some reason. Did I say intramural? I meant more like every time Duke beats Chapel Hill! Only because of the 3s… Although Chapel Hill has trouble teaching their players the difference between “2” and “3” so there’s that… I would still Aaron Brooks over Canaan and I’m not dropping a valuable guy just for this hot shooting game. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

Who is the hottest team in the NBA right now? The Pacers are surprisingly playing well and OKC is still winning through injuries, but those Utah Jazz are as tough to score on as the bookish chicks in college!

5-1 since the trade deadline, the Jazz have wins against Portland, San Antonio and now Memphis in that span (their loss was against the Lakers, but we’ll overlook that), and other than that fluke Lakers game, no one has scored over 82 points. And we all know the key to the Jazz D is Rudy Gobert. Moving into the starting line-up, Gobert has been playing unreal with a 15/24/1/0/0 line last night on 6-10 FG and 3-4 FT. He was on a 6-game streak of 3+ blocks, so a random outlier of 0 last night isn’t a biggie especially since Marc Gasol loves his mid-range.

I’ve seen a few comments of owners looking to trade for FG% and a big man boost, and I would be all-in on trying to bring Rudy to those squads. Even his FT% is improving at 11-15 from the stripe the past 3! And the Jazz have that oh so saucy 4/4/4 playoff sched. Yesterday on the Podcast, I asked Slim if he would take Gobert or Hassan Whiteside first in next year’s drafts. It’s really really close and comes down to a points need (Whiteside) vs. steals need (Gobert). It’s crazy that probably the biggest value change during the deadline was just the stubborn Jazz finally unleashing the beast that is Gobert. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Oh man, Russell Westbrook has turned into Oscar Robertson meets Michael Jordan! It’s like the first time you heard your favorite off-the-radar album, you’re like, “it sounds like Godspeed You! Black Emperor meets Between the Buried and Me on acid!” And right at the end of yet another tripdub with monster scoring Friday night (40/13/11), Andre Roberson pulled a Van Damme from Kickboxer and kneed the shizz outta RW’s face. Friggin’ Roberson and his fat knees! After the game, the fashion photographers were like, “Russell, show me your good side, no no the other way, give me Le Tigre! Ferrari! MAGNUM!”

Luckily facial reconstruction for face dents doesn’t include a long healing period; maybe they just went in under the skin and used a Pops A Dent! It’s been reported he could’ve even come back yesterday if it were the playoffs. I’d guess he’ll miss another game or two, but looks like we dodged a bullet. More like, Westbrook’s cheek caught the bullet, just it bounced off his Adamantium! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action: